Symphony Saturday – Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King

Traditional is what you could call most Dragon Quest games. There’s not a lot that changes between the games, only small things, the mechanics change a tiny bit, the stories differ. That said they are fun, and in a way like comfort food, the kind of thing you want to stay consistant each time you have it. The music is consistantly good too.

This track was not in the original version of the game, this one was. In my personal opinion Koichi Sugiyama, composer of the Dragon Quest games, is better suited to working with an orchestra. Yet in all initial releases of Dragon Quest games are put out with music sounding like it comes from someone’s keyboard. The music is still nice, since it’s still all the same good songs, but it doesn’t sound as good as it could be.

That’s why I applaud the localization team that worked on this game for switching the keyboard-tunes for a fully orchastrated soundtrack that just lends this big fantasy RPG an epic feel. An orchestra can just do that, make something feel just bigger. I don’t think films like Star Wars would have the same impact if it was filled with cheesy pop music. Orchestras can feel like a powerful thing in music, and if used effectively can be brilliant.